With this, we have completed the first part of this series where we explained 'Success is Not Original'. This part, which forms the foundation of our 'Step by Step' methodology, was perhaps the most important stage other than the setup. Because a building with a solid foundation will remain standing even if it doesn't rise very high. But no matter how high it rises, anything that doesn't have solid foundations will collapse just as fast as it rose.
So, what did we take away from this?
Our first concept was Ikigai.
Ikigai taught us first to be honest with ourselves: that no step taken without finding that narrow but solid intersection of passion, capability, need, and a sustainable revenue model is permanent. Clubhouse's invite system, Fntastic's game, the metaverse land craze — they all showed us the same lesson from different stages: enthusiasm cannot replace need.
Our second concept was the Individual. Here we learned that no matter how perfect the system is, it is always a human being who keeps it standing or brings it down. Knowledge, trust, vision, and reputation — these four elements pass from real people and reflect onto institutions, never the other way around. Satya Nadella taking a $300 billion company to $2.5 trillion in eight years, and Travis Kalanick collapsing a flawless algorithm with a single loss of trust, were proof of this.
Our third concept was Trust. We saw that two distinct capabilities — negative and positive — and the way they are conveyed to third parties, the Cue, form the true architecture of trust. Jim Sinegal not raising prices at Costco when he had the power to do so, Warren Buffett writing shareholder letters with the same simplicity for sixty years, Aaron Feuerstein keeping the promise he made to his three thousand employees after the Malden Mills fire — all of these showed us that it's not the capability itself, but how it is used and how it is heard that is the real determinant.
Our fourth concept was Endurance Threshold and Perception. Shackleton losing his goal in the ice but saving twenty-seven lives, Frankl's search for meaning in the camp, Mandela choosing strategy over anger after twenty-seven years, Edison turning thousands of "failures" into data points... All of these taught us that pain itself is not a guarantee, but the guarantee lies in being able to read the pain correctly.
And our fifth, final concept was Continuous Monitoring and Learning. The difference between Kodak foreseeing its own collapse in 1981 and doing nothing, and Nvidia patiently learning for years and embedding this into the system, was actually the summary of this chapter and perhaps the entire Development section: knowing is not learning.
